Sink

Today we went to the pool at my college. My sisters can swim. We all learned at the same camp.

Half the pool was divided into lanes and half was open. Right when we got there my sisters went into the pool while I talked to a girl I recognized. I was standing with my back to the pool while Alex and Danielle were in there. When I turned around I saw Dani first, and watched her pretty much hurl herself off the edge off the pool towards Alex.

Who I couldn't see. Except for the top of her head directly under the water. Still dressed, I had one leg up to the knee in the pool when an Indian boy rushed past me and grabbed Al's arm and dragged her to me. She was coughing and sputtering and I kept wacking her on the back and telling her to cough and get all the water out.

We went to sit down next to our stuff and Alex sat down in my lap. Dani pointed out all my clothes were getting soaked and Alex glared at her and said, "I don't care about her clothes."

When I asked Alex what happened this is what she told me:

I was fine and then the edge wasn't there and the floor wasn't there and I sank. I tried to say help but saw bubbles and thought I was drowning and dying. Then I saw the armpit hair of the boy who pulled me out.

She could not tell me why on earth she couldn't just swim or tread water or get to the top. And she could not stop saying she drowned. All day long. I made her get back in the pool after like 20 minutes of calming down and she played around with us in the water just fine.

Josh, his parents, random people we talked with on the way home, the fire family... Everyone got told Alex drowned today. Tonight's firefighter pulled me aside while we were there for dinner and told me I needed to watch out for secondary drowning. I'd never heard of it before and when we got home I looked it up.

Alex was there when I did it, and she sat in my lap while I asked if it hurt her to breathe, if she could cough, if her chest hurt, all these symptoms. I read to her straight from the website, including the words "death can occur." This was my biggest mistake. Less than five minutes later Alex was crying and told me she was scared. Danielle and I both snuggled her on the couch and assured her she was fine and not dying, that she didn't have ANY of the symptoms. Alex ran to go throw up all her dinner. She spent two hours crying on and off.

Danielle and I had to lay down with Alex so she'd fall asleep. It's still not clear how Alex came to be underwater and why somebody who could swim couldn't save herself in calm water.